A variety of ornaments are known for use with hair. These ornaments are placed in hair for both functional and aesthetic reasons. Some hair ornaments, such as "banana clips," barrettes, and pins, serve the function of retaining hair in a particular position or arrangement.
Other ornaments, such as hair beads, flowers, and ornamented clips are placed in the hair primarily for their visual effect. These items may be visually appealing themselves, and may also make the hair more visually appealing. Of course, some hair ornaments serve both functional and aesthetic purposes, such as colored barrettes, pony-tail bows and the like.
A common problem associated with many ornaments is that they are difficult to place and retain in or on the hair. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,555,901 and 5,669,399 to Camp, Jr. et al. disclose hair forming devices comprising a series of fixed rings. The rings are fixed in generally the same plane, with adjacent rings forming a "figure-8." As one aspect of this arrangement, the devices are rigid and cumbersome and does not in any way conform to the flexible nature of hair or the curvature of the head. Further, as illustrated therein, at least two braids of hair must be formed and passed separately through the series of rings. As is well known, the manual braiding of hair can be quite difficult and frustrating. However, in this rigid arrangement of the device no more convenient means is apparent for placing the device on the hair.
A number of hair ornaments comprising resilient members are known. As one example, a rubber band may be used to form a pony tail from hair. U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,795 to Hibbard and U.S. Des. Pat. No. 348,331 to Marrese disclose a hair braiding apparatus and hairband, respectively. The Hibbard reference discloses a method for french braiding hair using a braiding aid comprising a number of resilient loops. In accordance with the method, two strands of hair are crossed and passed through loops of the braiding aid while the user expands the loop with a thumb and forefinger. Again, this method is difficult because the placement of the hair through each loop is entirely manual. In addition, because the loops of the braiding aid are resilient, the loops must be expanded during braiding of the hair. This is difficult because one must at the same time expand the loop in order to make it large enough to place the hair through, and grasp and feed the hair through the enlarged loop. Because these apparatus must be constructed of a material which is elastic, the apparatus also has limited ornamental value.
The Marrese device appears similarly arranged to the Hibbard device, with a number of apparently resilient loops connected to one another. As illustrated therein, hair may be passed through all of the loops to form a ponytail. This device has the same problems and drawbacks as the Hibbard device, apparently differing only in the visual appearance of having a "gathered" fabric exterior.
A hair ornament which is both aesthetically pleasing and which is easy to place on hair is desired.